Attic Insulation Companies?

Desmo

My main bedroom is in the attic of a 3 bed semi; the house was built with the attic already converted and the attic room is like a box insde the roof space.
The ceiling above the "box" is insulated but the sides of the "box" are not and are cold in winter. Before I try doing it myself, does anyone know of a company (Dublin area) that will do this and who know about how to check the roof ventilation etc? If it was just a matter of sticking rolls of stuff down between the celing joists, I could do that myself but this is more involved (I think).

Thanks
Des

patrido

Usher Insulations are the only one I know of. I did see another van the other day with something insulation on the side. Maybe the golden pages might help.

Does the room have vertical walls about 1-1.5 metres high, a pitched side which forms part of the external roof, and a horizontal ceiling? Are you saying the ceiling is the only part that is insulated?

The pitched ceiling is where you'll lose most heat as it's closest to the outside, and it's also the most difficult to insulate. You can put insulation between the rafters, and not lose any room space, but you'll have to take off the plasterboard slabs to do it. If you have 6in rafters, you can put in 4 inches of insulation between the rafters, as you have to leave 2 inches for ventilation of the rafters. 4 inches of fibreglass like rockwool, or moy isover rolls is much better than nothing. 4 inches of kingspan, quinn or xtratherm boards would be much better (and also more expensive, but it will pay you back if you keep the house for a few years).

If you can easily access the void behind the vertical walls you can put insulation in there without any disruption to the existing walls. if the studs are 4x2, you can put 4 inches in there too. again fibreglass will do (rockwool and moy do batts as well as rolls - easier to put in vertical spaces). of course extruded polystyrene/polyiso a la kingspan, etc is better.

if you want to go all the way and insulate the roof to the latest standards, you'll need to put insulation under the rafters and inside the stud too. kingspan/xtratherm and quinn all make plasterboard laminated to insulation, so you can slab and insulate in one go. 100mm between the rafters and 25mm (that's 25mm insulation plus 12.5mm plasterboard) inside rafters will change your world

it's not an easy job and there are important things like electrics, water tank and ventilation to take account of, but it's not like building a spaceship either.

a good professional doing a quality job putting in fibreglass to 1980s/90s standards is better than you spending all your money on kingspan and making an ar$e of it. that's if you can find a good pro these days

here's a few of my bookmarks...
http://www.insulation.kingspan.com/ireland/tp10.htm
http://www.xtratherm.com/pdf/XTPR.pdf
http://www.quinn-group.com/Manufacturing_Therm.html

http://www.rockwool.co.uk/
http://www.moyisover.ie/
http://www.usherinsulations.com/

Desmo

patrido wrote:

Usher Insulations are the only one I know of. I did see another van the other day with something insulation on the side. Maybe the golden pages might help.

Does the room have vertical walls about 1-1.5 metres high, a pitched side which forms part of the external roof, and a horizontal ceiling? Are you saying the ceiling is the only part that is insulated?

Oi pal!!! Have you been in my house? You have described it exactly :-).
I will have a look to try and see if the pitched part is insulated; I suspect it is not as the house was built like this (1950s). I had hoped I could just push stuff down from the attic space above but you are probably right that I will have to remove plasterboards (or whatever was used in teh 1950s).

The vertical walls are not insulated and are easy to get through (there is a panel already with a vicious draught blowing through it) so I could get in there and do it but I will happily get a company to do it if they know what they are doing.

Thanks for the info!!!!

Desmo

patrido

Desmo wrote:

I had hoped I could just push stuff down from the attic space above

it might be possible to do this with a board as long as you are sure that you can maintain the 50mm space for ventilation. it would be too difficult with a roll of fibreglass. you'd also need to make sure you make it pretty airtight.

rockwool do a product called flexi which is fibreglass sandwiched in a board with flexible edges to ensure that it fills an uneven space. might be worth checking if you (or whoever you get to do it) can push these in from above and/or below. you won't quite get 21st century insulation, but it's a lot easier than slabbing, skimming and redecorating

rooferPete

Hi Desmo,

My house was similar to yours, we fitted 200mm of rockwool behind the walls, I wasn't going to remove the ceilings so I settled for a blown fibre insulation between the rafters.

I know the blown fibre wasn't going to perform as well as the full job but it certainly improved the heat loss problem so it might be worth checking out.

.

SnotNosedGit

http://www.warmfill.com/Default.htm

These guys are based up the north. They did my whole house in Dublin last december for €700 which was €500 cheaper than the lowest quote from any i got in the 26 counties.
Professional job, would never even notice they did anything except that i was with them when they did it. They even put cameras into your wall to check that its all filled.
Noticed the difference in heat that very night.

Desmo

rooferPete wrote:

Hi Desmo,

My house was similar to yours, we fitted 200mm of rockwool behind the walls, I wasn't going to remove the ceilings so I settled for a blown fibre insulation between the rafters.

I know the blown fibre wasn't going to perform as well as the full job but it certainly improved the heat loss problem so it might be worth checking out.

.

thanks Pete; the rockwool part is easy to imagine doing. Did you get someone in to do the blown fibre insulation?

Ta
Des

Desmo

SnotNosedGit wrote:

http://www.warmfill.com/Default.htm

These guys are based up the north. They did my whole house in Dublin last december for €700 which was €500 cheaper than the lowest quote from any i got in the 26 counties.
Professional job, would never even notice they did anything except that i was with them when they did it. They even put cameras into your wall to check that its all filled.
Noticed the difference in heat that very night.

Ta Mr Git :-)
I do not have any cavities (in me house) as far as I know but maybe they would fill the gap between the roof and the pitched ceiling. I need to watch for ventilation so I do not know if that is a good idea or not yet.

Thanks anyway.
I will phone them and ask.
Des

rooferPete

Hi Desmo,

I think there name is Mullingar Insulation but Coopers provide both the blown fibre and a product similar to warmfill.

Regarding warmfill I had to make an enquiry about a similar system / company to the IAB regarding a detail in terraced houses where they deviated big time from the certificate details.

Nobody could or would answer the questions as to how to correct the problem they caused which caused cold spots in the adjoining property, so take certification by the IAB with a pinch of salt.

.

Antrim_Man

Anybody recommend any companies, the link above no longer works?